Striving to improve to increase the fun!

As mentioned in earlier blog posts, I recently returned from a trip to Las Vegas, at which I attended the MobileBeat DJ show, and also attended two workshops given by two of the leading figures in the DJ industry. As a result I am now full, almost to the brim, with lots of ideas of things that I want to implement into my business and service that I provide to the couples that book me, with the end result being that the weddings will be even more fun, and leave them with a fantastic experience and a lot of treasured memories, even more so than I currently deliver.

The Best Wedding Reception…Ever!

The first workshop that I did was called The Professional Process and was given by Peter Merry, the author of the best selling book The Best Wedding Reception…Ever! A book that EVERY prospective bride should read, as it is packed with tons of creative ideas on personalising your wedding and giving all of the guests a lot of fun, from the wedding ceremony throughout the day and into the evening reception.

The workshop covered many of the suggestions mentioned in the book, and how to go about delivering them, and the preparation required in order to deliver them effectively.

As a result of this workshop, I have also now applied to join the very prestigious WED Guild (which I will cover in another blog post next week), which is a a very small group of extremely talented DJs & Master of Ceremonies (only 24 on the whole planet!) to really push myself upto the next level and offer a service that will blow people away…in a good way! I and 3 other UK DJs are undertaking the extremely rigorous application process, and am hoping to get through it and be one of the first, UK entertainers to be accepted into the WED Guild.

Honoured to receive this certificate for completing the MarBecca Master of Ceremonies Gold level workshop

The second workshop was given by Mark Ferrell, the man who Peter Merry regards as his mentor, and this was the MarBecca Gold Master of Ceremonies workshop, and followed on from the Bronze and Silver workshops that I did last year. This is designed to improve performance as a Master of Ceremonies and really makes you think about what is involved and how you can affect everyone in the audience in a positive way, which again, gives an end result of a much better experience for everyone at the wedding. Mark has a way of drawing performances out of you that you had no idea that you possessed! Then the trick is to capture that, and practice, practice, practice until it becomes almost second nature.

In between those two amazing workshops there were also a lot of great seminars at the Mobile Beat show, which also have given me a lot of food for thought, on ways to improve my service and business, and one of which will result in a much better website, which will be unveiled in a couple of weeks time.

I’ll finish with this recent quote from Mark Ferrell.

Courtesy of Mark Ferrell and the GWYW group (Get What Your Worth):

What if a DJ/MC didn’t know how bad he was? What if he was basically incompetent, but thought he was great?

If he had a lack of bookings, would he relate it to incompetence?
If he couldn’t charge a decent price, would he relate it to how bad he was?

Of course not. Because not knowing how bad he was, he would overestimate how good he was. And, in doing so, would look outwardly to find fault, instead of looking at himself.

When confronted with the facts of GWYW, would he gladly accept them and change or would he argue vehemently against GWYW and resort to name-calling?

Why?

Dunning-Kruger Effect:
“Incompetent people are unaware of their incompetence and accordingly fail to take any self-improvement measures that might rid them of their incompetence. People fail to grasp their own incompetence, precisely because they are so incompetent. And since, overcoming their incompetence would first require the ability to distinguish competence from incompetence people get stuck in a vicious cycle.”